


the seaweed is always greener

by lilithiumwords



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Crushes, Day At The Beach, Drabble, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 08:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5121461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithiumwords/pseuds/lilithiumwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shouyou might not know how to swim, but he's not going to tell anybody if he doesn't have to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the seaweed is always greener

“It's kind of pointless to come all this way for a practice game and not go to the beach, right?” Noya slyly suggests to Captain Ennoshita, who grumbles and glares and mutters rude things under his breath – but then he talks to Coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei anyway, and they cheerfully, blissfully agree.

Thus Shouyou is dragged all the way to the sea, full of brilliant blue waves that stretch on forever – and Shouyou cannot tell anyone that he has never gone swimming before in his life.

The sun and sand, he can get behind. The water, not so much.

He nearly succeeds in running off before Yamaguchi snags him and bullies him into putting on sunscreen with that sweet smile and mild tone, and Shouyou should know better than to trust him, but Yamaguchi always gets what he wants. So Shouyou sulks through it, letting Yamaguchi's gentle hands rub the cream into his shoulders and back. Tsukishima stands nearby with a small smirk, but it quickly vanishes when Shouyou escapes and Yamaguchi looks around for his next victim.

Serves him right.

Since Tanaka quickly starts a game of beach volleyball, Shouyou easily avoids actually going into the water – for a while, at least. Then they have to go get popsicles and lunch, and then they have to split watermelons, because who doesn't split watermelons at the beach? Then it's another game of volleyball, and a few other interesting things, and finally Shouyou collapses at their little camp of towels and umbrellas and rolls onto his stomach, sleepy and content without having touched the water once.

Yamaguchi and Yachi have already dragged Kageyama off to the waves, delighted grins on their faces. Shouyou does not envy Kageyama, who is bristling like an angry cat even from this distance, probably because Yamaguchi just splashed him in the face.

Shouyou chuckles, noticing the first years join the ruckus. The third years are further down the beach, playing some game that involves both frisbees and volleyballs, and were he not so sleepy, Shouyou would join immediately. Shouyou has half a moment to wonder where Tsukishima went before a long, lanky body drops down onto the towel beside him.

“Not going to swim?” Tsukishima inquires, listless and bored for all intents and purposes, but Shouyou has known him for a year now and hears the interest hiding beneath the apparent lack of emotion.

“Too tired,” he replies, making a point of yawning widely. He turns his head on his arms, peeking up at Tsukishima cautiously. Tsukishima still has on his grey button-up, currently unbuttoned, and Shouyou can see a long line leading down to his belly, along the dip of his belly button, which makes his face heat up. He quickly hides his face in his arms. Never mind than they have all been nearly naked all day with their swim suits – just one hint of seeing Tsukishima's body is enough to embarrass Shouyou.

He's known Tsukishima for ages. He should not be affected like this!

Tsukishima doesn't seem to care either way. He has not lost interest in Shouyou's avoidance of the sea. “We probably won't be staying much longer, so you should go soon.”

Shouyou debates not answering him, but Tsukishima gets irritated quickly if he is ignored, and Shouyou would rather not deal with a moody Tsukishima on the trip home. “I'm fine, really,” he sighs, forcing out another yawn. If he pretends to fall asleep, it should make Tsukishima leave him alone.

“You haven't gone into the water once,” Tsukishima says with the brevity of a great scholar who has deduced some deep mystery of the world. Shouyou groans, realizing Tsukishima is not going to give up. He rolls onto his side, away from Tsukishima, and covers his head with his arm. After a moment, he feels a presence at his back; Tsukishima has leaned over him. “Hinata.”

“What,” Shouyou grumbles. He can picture the look of consternation of Tsukishima's face.

“Why haven't you gone into the water?”

And there it is. Shouyou could get up and run away. Tsukishima would likely stop him, or call in reinforcements, and Shouyou has no doubts that Yamaguchi and Yachi could catch him. (Kageyama, too, but he's the last person Tsukishima would ever enlist for something as simple as catching Shouyou, which is admittedly easy.) He sulks for a moment, lip jutting out in a pout, before exhaling strongly enough to blow the sand off his towel. “I can't swim.”

He just _knows_ that Tsukishima is staring at him. He can feel his gaze burning the back of his head, those cool gold eyes narrowed in on the target of Shouyou's face, though Shouyou is doing everything in his power not to look back. It's more than unsettling. Tsukishima observes everything, almost as much as Kenma, and Shouyou wants nothing more than to melt into the sand and escape this conversation.

When Tsukishima speaks again, he sounds very smug, enough that Shouyou looks up at him in affront. “Thought so. Come on, then.” He tugs at Shouyou's arm, dragging him up even though Shouyou resists the entire time, a whine dropping from his throat.

“What are you doing? Come on, Tsukishima, I just want to nap.” Shouyou's tone is incredibly belligerent, even for him – he's been studying Tsukishima's techniques.

Tsukishima fixes him with a blank stare. Shouyou narrows his eyes; he can see the twitch of a smirk at the corner of Tsukishima's mouth. “You will go into the water. Either you can go with me, or I can let Yamaguchi know about your plight. Ah, looks like he and Yachi just dunked Kageyama again,” Tsukishima says blandly, glancing past him, and Shouyou whirls around to see Kageyama surface from the water, wet and cursing as Yachi and Yamaguchi laugh and the first years scatter.

“I refuse,” Shouyou tries to say, but all that comes out is, “Hrghk.”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes and presses his hands to the center of Shouyou's back, easily pushing him toward the water. Shouyou resists him for all of thirty seconds, at least until Yachi turns around, spots them, and waves enthusiastically. She is quickly distracted by Kageyama, who bodily picks her up and throws her, and Shouyou tenses for a moment before he sees her jump up from the water, laughing.

It _does_ look fun. But there's so much water! It's so big! And so blue, and full of currents and depths that Shouyou knows are full of strange, terrifying creatures like the lucifer dogfish and other hellish beasts, and he doesn't want to, and he's going to drown and die and never get to play volleyball again and –

And his feet are wet, and there is water crashing against his legs, and it feels very nice.

“Oh,” Shouyou says, staring down at his legs which are already two feet into the water. How had he missed that? He really needs to stop panicking so much. It's never good for his attention span. What was he worried about again?

“This is ridiculous,” Tsukishima mutters at his back, and Shouyou abruptly realizes that they are now waist deep – well, not for Tsukishima, who is even taller than he was in their first year, and Shouyou has hardly grown in comparison. He has clung to his precious few centimeters gained like they could disappear at any moment.

He latches onto his tall teammate with the same fervor now, scrambling up his side and climbing onto his shoulders and out of the water, flailing when Tsukishima lurches backward.

“Hinata, calm down!” Tsukishima yells, drawing the attention of their yearmates, but Hinata wraps all of his limbs around Tsukishima and refuses to move again.

“It's too deep,” he hisses, and Tsukishima sighs very deeply, the single breath lifting Shouyou into the air and back down. Shouyou pretends he's not impressed.

Tsukishima pointedly walks back toward the shore several paces, until the water is at his knees. “Hinata, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Just stand in the water with me. Come on, that's it,” he murmurs, soothing and slow, large hands gently prying Shouyou's gangly legs from around his torso. Gradually Shouyou slips back down into the water, his feet finding wet sand again, water splashing against his legs.

“This is weird,” he whines, clutching at Tsukishima.

“You are impossible,” Tsukishima sighs, but he lets Shouyou hang off of him, and though Shouyou doesn't really learn to swim that day, he does learn not to let go of Tsukishima. 

He doesn't care how embarrassing it looks; Tsukishima is the tallest person around, and there's no way Shouyou can drown if he has Tsukishima as his anchor.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by and written for kaavyawriting, who is perfect and also a bad influence.


End file.
